Readers may remember that last month’s issue of Superman, #712, went through a last minute change of content – something that many suspected was down to corporate concern over the original, unpublished, story’s use of a Muslim American superhero – but others explained away as DC editorial refusing to publish a story that featured Superman rescuing a cat from a tree.
Funny thing about that second option. Here’s a page from today’s Superman #713:
So, given that this issue wasn’t also replaced at the last moment with an inventory tale, this means one of the following:
- The Powers That Be that pulled the original #712 over a cat being rescued somehow missed seeing the scene reappear in #713.
- The Powers That Be that pulled the original #712 over a cat being rescued have, in the last month, gotten over their cat-rescuing issues and have no problem with this scene being seen by the world at large, despite the public embarrassment it will bring.
- The Powers That Be that pulled the original #712 didn’t pull the story because of any cat-rescuing, and that entire version of events was an attempt to spin the story away from the much more damning possibility of it being pulled over the character of Sharif.
Now, really, which one of those seems most likely…?
July 13th, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Option 4 is that DC editorial realized too late that two consecutive issues featured a cat-rescuing scene, and decided that one had to go, with #712 being the unlucky one.
July 13th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Maybe the difference is that in #712, it was just a dumb stray cat that got stuck, but in #713 it was a *little girl’s* dumb cat that got stuck?
July 13th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
Option 5: They ran out of inventory tales and HAD to run it, much to their regret.
July 13th, 2011 at 6:50 pm
Option 6: the cat in #712 was a Muslim cat.